26 Dec 2003 - 6th day in New Zealand - Boxing Day
"Boxing Day, popular term applied to December 26 in England, Wales, parts of Canada, and in some other countries of the Commonwealth of Nations. Traditionally, on that day the gentry would give presents, generally of money, to servants, tradespeople, and others of humble life. These presents came to be known as Christmas boxes. Boxing Day is a legal bank holiday."
Spent most of the morning catching up this log. Then, about 1000, I took my laptop and walked over to the Cyber Cafe where they offered to allow me to connect directly. When I arrived, the was a young oriental girl in charge rather than the guy I talked to the other day. I told her what I wanted and she didn't look like she knew what I meant nor if I should be allowed to do it.
I explained that I'd talked to a fellow on the 24th who said it was OK and then I told her that if she's just show me one of their systems which I could use, I'd simply note down its network connections and substitute my laptop onto their system.
The first system she showed me to had a user interface all in Korean. For awhile, I thought I might be able to locate what I needed using just the graphic images but it turned out to not be so. I had to ask her for another system which was setup in English.
Once I substituted in my laptop for their system, everything worked. I uploaded my log and associated pictures for the 20Dec03 to 25Dec03 period. It was quite a lot of stuff. I also experimented with putting a QuickTime movie file up but I think I need to learn more about how to do this.
Total cost for uploading 30 to 40 MB was $5/NZ.
After the Cyber shop, I took my laptop back to the hotel and then I went for a long walk and found some lunch along the way. I ended up walking back to the area where I saw The Lord of the Rings on Christmas Eve. To get there, you pass a street which is blocked off to vehicle traffic and that area is called Cuba for unknown reasons. It is fun with tons of people and lots of small shops.
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| Cuba area | More Cuba area | And more Cuba area | Something odd - don't know what |
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| Lord of the Rings on a building across from the theater | Dragon & theater in the distance | Street near the theater | Close up of the theather's dragon |
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| Another street scene | An interesting ad |
I took some pictures of the theater - it has a huge dragon sitting on top. I ate a hamburger (much to Sharon's disgust when I told her later) at a McDonalds and then walked back to the hotel.
As I arrived at the hotel, I remembered the Wellington Cable Car which starts just a few doors down from the hotel, so I walked over there and paid $3.50NZ for a round-trip - up and back. It runs every ten minutes so it wasn't long. See www.wellingtonnz.com/cablecar for more details on this.
The ride was short but pretty. At the top are several interesting things including a botanical gardens and an observatory. I took a look at the observatory for a few minutes and then I went out and wandered the gardens for a long time shooting photos of various plants and trees. Then at about 1700, I rode the cable car back down and returned to the hotel.
Here are a few of the of the photos of the Botanical Gardens. There are too many of the to put them all here though later, when this web site is CD based, I may add them all.
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| Skyline from the top | Ditto | Ditto | And ditto |
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| Interesting sidewalk motif | The Carter Observatory | An Araucaria bidwilli tree | Another view of tree |
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| An interesting plant | And close up | Anti-Nuclear Peace Flame Plaque | Peace Flame Garden |
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| Another of the garden | Another view of the city from above | The Cable car arrives |
I didn't do much in the evening but lay around, order up a Caesar Salad, and watch some mindless TV. I think I've pretty much done with Wellington for just walking around and seeing the sights and getting the sense of the place. It is a beautiful city and one that would be very easy to live in.